‘Is therenothingyou can do?’ I asked the doctor, not realising I was gripping the fabric of his sleeve until he gently pulled his arm free from my hold.
‘We can keep her comfortable; we can assist her breathing; we can—’
I shook my head, cutting him off. This manknewme. He knew how diligently I would have read up about this moment over the last few months. I knew exactly what to expectandwhat was coming next.
‘I’m so sorry, Lexi. I truly am.’ I didn’t need to hear the crack in his voice or see the tears in his eyes to know how true that was. He’d journeyed with us for a long time, but now after fifteen months together, our association was coming to an end.
‘I have to go. I have to be with her,’ I said, looking beyond him to the room my mother had just entered.
Dr Vaughan nodded and, with a look of helpless regret, stepped aside.
*
I would have thought we were in the wrong room had it not been for the fan of chestnut-coloured hair splayed on the pillow. Amelia’s skin was chalky, but her hair was still as vibrant as the strands I’d brushed that morning in my own bedroom. Everything else about her, though, seemed paler, almost translucent, as though the mirror image I was used to seeing was slowly dissolving before my eyes.
I couldn’t move. My feet felt glued to the vinyl of the hospital floor. I didn’t know this colourless, fragile figure in the bed. She was a stranger, and she scared me. For a moment, all I wanted to do was run from the room. But then the stranger turned her head and when she saw who had entered the room, she shot me Amelia’s smile and freed me.
Mum was already ensconced in her old position on one side of the bed, and my feet took me on the familiar route to mine on the opposite side. Amelia’s cheek felt hot and dry when I bent to kiss it, and despite the nasal cannula delivering a steady supply of oxygen, her breathing sounded worryingly short.
‘What day is it?’ she asked.
I frowned. ‘It’s Wednesday.’
She nodded slowly as though she’d been expecting that answer and then shook her head in disappointment. ‘It’s such a boring day to go. What a typical accountant thing to do.’
‘No one is going anywhere,’ I disagreed hotly.
Amelia reached for me with a hand hooked up to a drip. ‘Let’s make a promise today that we only tell each other the truth, huh? Call it my last request.’
I was ready for lots of things, but not this gallows humour.
‘I can do that,’ Tom said gruffly as he took a hesitant step towards the end of Amelia’s bed.
‘Hello, Tom,’ Amelia said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. ‘I’m so glad you’re here to be with Mum today.’
Tom shuffled his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other before replying, ‘Actually, lass, I’m here to be with you. And you know that’s the truth because no one’s lying today. And I’ll tell you this: for a lifelong bachelor who’s never had kids, this sure feels like I’m losing a child.’
‘No one is losing anyone,’ I said. My voice had risen in volume and was now that of a frightened child.
Amelia turned in my direction, and there was such tenderness in her eyes when she looked at me. ‘Can I have a minute alone with Lexi?’ she asked, her gaze never once leaving my face.
I heard rather than saw Mum and Tom leave the room.
‘You have to stop this,’ Amelia insisted, her voice surprisingly strong, as though she’d been storing reserves for just this moment.
‘I can’t.’
She shook her head vigorously. ‘Youhaveto, Lexi, you just have to. Because I can’t do this if I’m worrying about you too.’
‘Then don’t do it. Stay. Stay here with me.’ The tears were flowing so quickly down my cheeks there was no point even attempting to wipe them away, but Amelia raised one hand and gave it her best shot.
‘I know you, Lexi. I know you want to fix everything and make it better. But there’s no fixing this, and we’ve both known that for a long time now.’
‘It’s not fair,’ I cried, sounding like the child version of me; the one who’d looked up to her older sister with unswerving love and admiration. Who still did.
‘We’re not promised fair, and I chose this path, remember.’
‘I don’t know how to be in a world that doesn’t have you in it,’ I said. ‘I’ve never had it be “just me”. Even before I was born, there were two of us.’
